People who drink their coffee black often have psychopathic or sadistic traits, according to a study.

Researchers at the University of Innsbruck in Austria investigated a potential link between a preference for bitter taste and antisocial personality traits.

To gather data, researchers quizzed over 1,000 adults about how much they liked various foods and drinks with varying ranges of bitterness.

Bitter foods included coffee, radishes, beer, tonic water, and celery. Compared to other flavors, the researchers found that bitterness was the biggest predictor of psychopathic personality traits.

Those surveyed took four different personality tests that examined traits like narcissism, aggression, sadism, and psychopathy.

The study found that people who tend to like bitter foods also had personality traits that could be seen as bitter and unpleasant: "The present research has demonstrated that bitter taste preferences are associated with 549 more pronounced malevolent personality traits, especially robustly with everyday sadism."

Past studies on potential psychopathy have focused on different factors including job preference and personality traits.